Unhappy Anniversary, ObamaCare

Guys are usually notorious when it comes to forgetting anniversaries. Then, when they finally remember, whatever it is they do sometimes ends up not being good enough to cover their forgetfulness. But what happens when it’s something you really don’t want to celebrate in the first place? Well, in a case like this, you can get away with being late. (But don’t be late on that monthly tax to a big insurer for the privilege of being alive, as I’m sure the Obama regime won’t stand for that once the unconstitutional mandate goes into effect!) So, anyway, here is my, um, “tribute” to the boondoggle known as ObamaCare…

On March 18, 2010, after Obama had made numerous trips all over the country costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to promote his boondoggle, while polluting the environment with untold amounts of carbon from his taxpayer funded private jet, Congress rammed ObamaCare through on a party line vote. EX Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi marched into the chamber with a sickening smirk while holding the big gavel, flanked by extremist leftwing comrades.

That evening, we heard impassioned speeches from Democrats practically suggesting that this multithousand page mess was the best thing since sliced bread and that if we didn’t pass it that moment, the sky would fall in. No, better yet, maybe the moon would crash into the earth if ObamaCare was not passed that moment!! And somehow, making people pay big insurers by the month was going to “stick it to the insurance companies.” Yes, giving them more customers who are forced by law to pay them every month is really going to “stick it” to them. What other industry gets guaranteed customers like that due to a law? Not even the auto insurance industry…..because nobody forces someone to own a car!

ObamaCare, a multithousand page bill which has hundreds of places giving vague powers to the Secretary of Health and Human Services to “promulgate regulations” anout practically everything to do with our very personal health care decisions, was promoted as a way to help the poor get insurance. Of course, all of ObamaCare will not even go into effect for a few more years so I’m not sure how the poor are supposed to cope in the meantime. Had they just adjusted Medicaid and put up a much smaller bill to clean up problematic insurance company practices, this thing could have gone into effect faster, cost less, and received more approval from the American people. Heck, Pelosi might have even kept her high and mighty perch —- AND the big gavel (more on that soon).

After ObamaCare was rammed through Congress, there were calls made to talk radio shows by sheeple who swallowed the mainstream media/Democrat party (sorry for the redundancy there) propaganda hook, line, and sinker. They felt that it was like “Christmas” because ObamaCare had been rammed through. Of course, there will be a few real Christmases (oops, sorry, I forgot it’s not politically correct to mention the real Christmas!) before the boondoggle goes into effect.

Then there was “reconciliation.” In order to bargain with blue dog Democrats and get them to rubber stamp the US Senate version of the ObamaCare mess in the US House (not even the normal order of things), a subsequent 100+ page bill was needed to correct some problems. Pelosi had a simple majority of rubber stamps to get the job done in the House. But the Senate has a pesky little rule about needing 60 votes for most legislation to pass. After late January 2010, they had a new member: Scott Brown, “Republican” from Massachusetts. If nothing else, at least he was not going to vote for ObamaCare. So, Harry Reid had to find a trick to ram legislation through. He put it in as “reconciliation.” Of course, it’s acceptable to the left when their party’s politicians find creative technicalities to push legislation that puts all American citizens in chains. But if Republicans do this to rein in the out of control public union fatcats and their buddies who trash public property and cost the taxpayers to clean it up, that’s apparently “wrong.” Let’s not get into the fact that the only reason anything creative had to be done was because cowardly Democrats left the state to try and prevent the people’s business from happening in the legislature. Basically, it’s okay when the left does it. Glad I know the “rules” here.

Anyway, what’s next? Ah yes, there was a sudden flurry of long time Democrat Congresspersons and Senators who just then, after decades in some cases, remembered that they have families with whom they needed to spend more time. It’s amazing how this revelation happened to so many shortly after ObamaCare was rammed through and just a few months before an election! A great example is, oh, I don’t know, David Obey from Wisconsin. This was a career politician in the same office since 1969! Talk about the power of incumbency there. And Wisconsin at least used to be a reliably blue state (worth a nice 10 electoral votes, so nothing to sneeze at like ultra reliably blue Vermont or Delaware at 3 each). Oh wait, it appears the seat David Obey occupied for 21 terms (42 years) as a Democrat flipped to a Republican in 2010. But then they defeated longtime Democrat US Senator from Wisconsin Russ Feingold. Couldn’t he have found an excuse not to run? But even better (drumroll please), Wisconsin got a Republican governor after having a two term Democrat governor who decided not to seek reelection.

Outside of Wisconsin, Pelosi lost her pedestal, her Gulf Stream jet (courtesy the taxpayers), and that great big gavel. She can of course still look down at the lowly peons because while she receives a fabulous salary as well as benefits and will have a fabulous retirement, some normal Americans (the ones paying for her luxury) live hand to mouth, don’t know how the next month’s bills are going to be paid, whether their job will still exist next week, etc. There was a power struggle within the Democrat party as to whether they should keep the now shopworn Pelosi, the personification of the failed policies of the past, as leader of the US House Democrats. But they decided to stay the course with someone who presided over a 60+ seat loss in the House. Over in the Senate, Harry Reid’s majority was greatly decimated. But best of all, Obama’s teleprompter introduced its spokesman to a new word: “shellacked.” Obama read the word in reference to what happened to the Democrat majorities in Congress in the 2010 elections. However, let us hope that he comes to a deeper understanding of the word in November 2012.

Meanwhile, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, handed out waiver after waiver to various big companies. What’s the point of a law when the Obama regime can willy nilly hand out waivers to favored large corporations? And I thought it was only REPUBLICANS that helped big corporations!! Can’t those American citizens who don’t feel like being forced to pay a big insurer every month get a waiver too? Or is it only for big companies that have the resources to donate to Obama’s reelection campaign? The law is the law. Let it apply to everyone evenly. Didn’t Obama read something from his teleprompter about a “new era of responsibility” during his big speech back in 2009 when he was virtually coronated? Haven’t we heard about “shared sacrifice”? Why do Obama’s big corporate buddies get a pass on all that stuff?

Ultimately, despite a gargantuan mess to clean up, the ObamaCare boondoggle was sort of useful as a way to wake people up. Things like the FAILED “stimulus” (cue the vague stats about “saved or created in Oklahoma’s 00th phantom district” or “it would have been worse for us if we didn’t enslave our great great grandchildren to our debt” and such) did not do enough to get people going, being that the burden will be on our great great grandchildren (the few actually not aborted). You see, it’s too far into the future. But the idea of an unconstitutional tax on the privilege of being alive and a cold, detached elitist named Kathleen Sebelius having the ability to regulate people’s personal medical decisions sort of brings things to the forefront. We needed the wake up call and we need to reexamine everything when it comes to gargantuan government. The tea may have been brewing with TARP and the FAILED “stimulus” but ObamaCare made the proverbial tea kettle whistle. So, maybe this is an anniversary worth a certain type of “celebration.”

Obama, meanwhile, seems more and more irrelevant. He’s worried about reelection, afterall, and that bothersome business of actually governing the country is just such a nuisance. He ought to be running around the United States celebrating the one year anniversary of ObamaCare. Forcing people to pay a “life tax” to a big insurer every month was supposed to be his signature issue. He should be basking in the political capital of this, remembering the struggle Pelosi and Reid had when it came to dooming the political careers of some of their colleagues, and speechifying with his teleprompter. Instead, he’s off in Brazil while our economy sinks. I suppose you can’t blame him. After the mess he has created, why not try to get away from it for a little while?

So, I hope you enjoyed my little “tribute” to ObamaCare. What a fun year it has been seeing Pelosi toppled, Reid lose a great deal of power, and Obama losing practically all political capital.